An intelligent agent-based framework for privacy payoff negotiation in virtual environments

With the rapid development of applications in open distributed virtual environments, such as e-Business and virtual games, privacy is becoming a critical issue. This paper presents an intelligent agent-based framework for privacy payoff in virtual environments, with special focus on capability-based negotiation services. These services take into consideration users' entitlement to benefit from revealing their personal information. In such model, users of the virtual environment who share same interests have the opportunity to form personal information lists that can be used later for group bargaining. The intelligent negotiation agent acts on their behalf to maximize their benefit. The overall framework is described, and a particular example is presented to show the interaction among the agents.